1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an arrangement adapted to manufacture various kinds of magnetic cards such as cash cards, credit cards, membership cards or time cards, and more particularly to an arrangement for manufacturing a magnetic card having a double-layered core composed of a front and a rear core materials.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A magnetic card 24 having a double-layered core is, as is seen from a perspective view of FIG. 1 and from an exploded perspective view of FIG. 2, comprised of a core (base plate) 25 formed of a printed double-layered plastic plate, overlays 26 and 27 overlapped respectively on front and rear surfaces of the core 25 and a magnetic tape 28 of a small width bonded to an outer front surface of the overlay 26. The overlays 26 and 27 are made of a transparent plastic film.
The magnetic card 24 in the above-mentioned structure has conventionally been manufactured in the following manner.
1) Many units of cores are printed in alignment on a large rectangular raw material. An overlay in the same rectangular shape is positioned and overlapped on each of the front and rear surfaces of the raw material. A magnetic tape is so positioned on an outer surface of the overlay at the front side of the card as to be aligned with the row of units of magnetic cards, which is then bonded to be a composite.
2) The obtained composite and a stainless plate having a mirror finished surface are overlapped many, and fed to a multistage press for thermal press, whereby the overlays and the raw material sandwiched therebetween are integrally laminated.
3) Each laminated composite is then supplied to a cutting machine to punch out every unit of core. A magnetic card of a predetermined size is hence obtained.
Every process in the above-described conventional manufacturing arrangement is executed for each one rectangular raw material. Moreover, the material is transferred, supplied and discharged to or from each processing unit manually. Therefore, it is difficult according to the conventional manufacturing method to obtain magnetic cards effectively with high positioning accuracy and with high productivity.
Although it is devised to automatize the transfer, supply or discharge of raw materials among the processing units, it cannot be avoided that the transfer means, positioning and supplying means, discharging means, etc. required are complicated in structure because many rectangular sheets of materials are handled every one sheet. Furthermore, processing speed should be matched or synchronized among the processing units by some means. As a result, the arrangement structure as a whole becomes complicated, expensive and bulky in size.